


don't take me seriously please (that's not an angst title, it's a genuine request)

by bibliomaniac



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, Multi, just a compilation of my crack pairing oneshots, that arent long enough to be their own listing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-27
Updated: 2018-03-27
Packaged: 2019-04-13 12:46:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14112654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bibliomaniac/pseuds/bibliomaniac
Summary: in which rarepairs are established with a seriousness they possibly do not deserve(aka my taz rarepair/crack pairing oneshot compilation. standard rules apply: do not @ me.)





	1. Magnus / Jack

Magnus knew right away that they were the ones who were right for the Chalice. They were kind, and loving, and they embraced him with the kind of warmth he usually associated with the IPRE--with a hundred years of being together--and it had only been three days since they found him.

And he knew he had to get back to his _real_ family. He had never intended to be gone so long in the first place; he had just wanted to get the Chalice somewhere it couldn't hurt people. But he had found them instead, Jack and June, a little pocket of family in the middle of nowhere, and the more time he spent with them the harder it became for him to leave.

Taako didn't bother with attachments in these cycles anymore--another thing Magnus awfully hoped he would adjust to now that they're here for good ( _he hopes, he hopes_ )--but Magnus had always loved too hard, too fast. And he knows that. He knows that Jack's looks are a little too interested for it to be just curiosity about the idiot who didn't bring enough water into a desert, the idiot who had gotten so used to dying that he genuinely hadn't thought about how that wouldn't fly this time. And June, whip-smart, too smart for her age, raises her eyebrows when her daddy is by Magnus' sickbed, when they talk and talk for hours, when Magnus whittles a duck for him with a sheepish smile, when Jack looks down at it and smiles like it's something beautiful. He _knows_ , he knows, he's not a genius but he's not _dumb_ , and he catches himself thinking _I could do this, this could be my life_ , even as his brain tells him, _You could never stay._

He doesn't know if he'd call it a mistake when Jack kisses him, or when he kisses back. Magnus doesn't believe that acting on your feelings is ever a mistake. But--he does have regrets, maybe, because it's been too long and his family needs him back, and they were there _first_ , and Magnus has always been loyal to a fault.

"I could come back," he whispers to Jack the night before he leaves. "I could--when everything is settled--" 

Jack smiles, all too wise and a little bit sorrowful, and he says, "You won't, though."

"I will," Magnus says, stubbornly. He doesn't like being challenged.

"Maybe." Jack presses a kiss to his eyebrow. "But I don't think we'll see each other again. I just get that feeling, somehow."

Jack's heart hurts as he says it, but he can manage. He can do it for Magnus. Because he doesn't know if they're right for the Chalice, doesn't even really know what it can do past all Magnus's warnings, but—he knew right away that Magnus was the right one for them.

(It takes Magnus years to come back, and neither he nor June remember, and Jack is gone. But Magnus will look up at the statue, and see three people smiling, and—just for a second, he’ll feel something sort of like family.)


	2. Duck / Barclay

Duck tries not to think about his destiny. He’s been running from it a long time, and thinking about it feels like letting it catch up a bit. But—when he did think about it, back when he was younger and Minerva spoke of glory, he sort of thought that if he had taken her up on her offer he might’ve been something like the lead in one of those classic action novels he read as a kid. The ones who fight monsters and save the day and do it all while looking bad-ass and debonair. He doesn’t—not that he ever thought he could swing the last part, but—the point is, he thinks his story would’ve been about fighting, and winning, and fighting again.

He _never_ could have been the lead in a romance novel, is his second point, which brings him to where he’s at today, which is staring at Barclay, who is staring at him too, but also mostly at the computer in front of him, which has a giant picture of what appears to be Bigfoot porn on the screen.

Duck changes his mind. He would like his story to be the kind of one that ends in his death. Right now. Immediately.

“This—I didn’t bring this image up,” Duck says, clears his throat. 

“Uh-huh,” Barclay says, eyes still glued to the Bigfoot porn, which Duck is very pointedly not looking at.

“Ned was using the computer earlier. I guess—uh—“ 

“Oh, God. Can we go back to thinking it was you?” Barclay says, jokingly, and then he freezes, and then both of them are staring at each other uncomfortably.

“Um,” Duck says.

“Just—‘cause—Ned is—you know,” Barclay says, and his voice is mostly even but his face says he longs for a swift death just as much as Duck does. 

“Yeah.” Duck fakes a chuckle. It comes out sounding sort of like someone is strangling him. “Yeah, uh—I don’t want to think about what he might have been doing with that picture either.” He makes the mistake of looking back at the computer and winces. “That’s—pretty amazing, in a way, that there are people who draw, uh—stuff like that, about…I mean, they don’t even know you. Seems a bit rude to me.” 

“You know me,” Barclay says, then his eyes go wide and the tips of his ears go pink. It’s a very nice look. “Not that—you would, uh—“

“I mean, I can’t draw worth shit,” Duck says reasonably. “So even if I were so inclined, I couldn’t do much.”

“Are you?” Barclay says. His eyes close slowly, pained. “Oh my God. Please shoot me.” 

“I don’t have a gun,” Duck says automatically, then pauses. “Is the question if—if I could draw, would I draw porn of you?”

“You could find a gun,” Barclay says under his breath. “You could—I’ll find Aubrey. She will give me a warm, fiery death, and it will be beautiful.”

“I mean.” Duck scratches at the back of his neck thoughtfully, trying to suppress the urge to run. He’s been trying to do less of that lately. “Seems to me that would be doing things in the wrong order. We could go on a date first.”

And then they’re back to staring at each other.

“Is that a hypothetical,” Barclay finally says, and now he’s the one who sounds strangled.

“Uh. Could be, if you want it to be.” What the hell is happening.

“And if—I didn’t?”

“I mean.” Oh my God. Does Duck know how to breathe? Was that an ability he was given? “I could pick you up at like. Eight.”

“It’s seven thirty,” Barclay says, and his face is somehow hopeful and fond and amused and terrified all at once.

“That leaves you thirty minutes to get ready, yeah? Do you got a—routine you need to do or something?”

“No.” Barclay breaks out into a grin, shy and pleased. “No, uh—eight works.”

(Later that night, after Duck is home and lying in bed and dizzy with the feeling of Barclay’s hand in his at the end of the night and with the promise of another date a week later, Minerva appears with her usual lack of fanfare.

“DUCK NEWTON,” she booms, which is sort of her default volume. “YOU HAVE BEEN ON A DATE!” 

“Sure have,” Duck says, because Minerva doesn’t usually drop a subject once she’s on it.

“LOVE IS ITS OWN FORM OF DESTINY,” she says, nodding wisely. “I SEE YOU ARE NOT RUNNING FROM THIS ONE.” 

“It’s not love. It’s just one date, for Christ’s sake.”

“OF COURSE, DUCK NEWTON,” she says, in an unsubtly placating voice. “BUT WHEN IT _IS_ LOVE, I WOULD LIKE TO GIVE YOU AN OFFER.”

“What’s that?” he says, suddenly very tired. 

“I AM VERY GOOD AT DRAWING.” And with that, she vanishes, leaving Duck sputtering, horrified, on his bed.

This would make a _terrible_ romance novel, he will later think. But maybe—without any genre, just him and Barclay fuddling through together, it’ll be an all right story someday.)

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading my weirdo shit. tumblr is [anuninterestingperson](http://anuninterestingperson.tumblr.com) thankyou


End file.
